they break our grammar's laws,
And their language is lamentable--
And they never take off their gloves, because
Their nails are not presentable.

NOBLES. Our nails are not presentable!

PRINCESS. To account for their shortcomings manifest
We explain, in a whisper bated,
They are wealthy members of the brewing interest
To the Peerage elevated.

NOBLES. To the Peerage elevated.

ALL. They're/We're very, very rich,
And accordingly, as sich,
To the Peerage elevated.

PRINCE. Well, my dear, here we are at last--just in time
to
compel Duke Rudolph to fulfil the terms of his marriage contract.
Another hour and we should have been too late.
PRINCESS. Yes, papa, and if you hadn't fortunately
discovered a means of making an income by honest industry, we
should never have got here at all.
PRINCE. Very true. Confined for the last two years within
the precincts of my palace by an obdurate bootmaker who held a
warrant for my arrest, I devoted my enforced leisure to a study
of the doctrine of chances--mainly with the view of ascertaining
whether there was the remotest chance of my ever going out for a
walk again--and this led to the discovery of a singularly
fascinating little round game which I have called Roulette, and
by which, in one sitting, I won no less than five thousand
francs! My first act was to pay my bootmaker--my second, to
engage a good useful working set of second-hand nobles--and my
third, to hurry you off to Pfennig Halbpfennig as fast as a train
de luxe could carry us!
PRINCESS. Yes, and a pretty job-lot of second-hand nobles
you've scraped together!
PRINCE (doubtfully). Pretty, you think? Humph! I don't
know. I should say tol-lol, my love--only tol-lol. They are not
wholly satisfactory. There is a certain air of unreality about
them--they are not convincing.
COST. But, my goot friend, vhat can you expect for
eighteenpence a day!
PRINCE. Now take this Peer, for instance. What the deuce
do you call him?
COST. Him? Oh, he's a swell--he's the Duke of Riviera.
PRINCE. Oh, he's a Duke, is he? Well, that's no reason
why
he should look so confoundedly haughty. (To Noble.) Be affable,
sir! (No